Dec. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Amazon.com Inc. workers in Germany
sent a delegation to the company’s Seattle headquarters to
reinforce strikes demanding higher pay and a better work
environment, the Verdi union said.

Union representatives will be joined today in Seattle by
members of U.S. unions including the Communications Workers of
America, Verdi spokesman Heiner Reimann said. Workers at the
German logistics centers in Bad Hersfeld, Leipzig and Graben
have been called to go on strike today, the union said.

“Amazon is trying to completely ignore us,” Reimann said
by phone from Bad Hersfeld. “Today we’re showing that we’re not
isolated, that support is growing and that we’re working to stay
on the company’s agenda.”

Strikes began in May, with demands including collective
wage agreements, increases in minimum pay and better treatment
of employees. Amazon, whose headcount rose to 88,400 at the end
of last year from 56,200 a year earlier, has built new logistics
centers and hired workers on temporary contracts to soften the
impact from the strikes on year-end holiday shipments.

Employees in Amazon’s nine German logistics centers receive
an income “at the upper end of what is the norm in the
logistics industry,” Anette Nachbar, a spokeswoman for the
company in Munich, said by e-mail. “We see no advantage for our
employees from entering into a collective wage agreement that
Verdi demands.”

Amazon is using its “entire European logistics network”
to make sure customers receive deliveries for the holidays,
Nachbar said. The majority of workers in Germany worked
regularly throughout the strikes so far, she said.